rain, wondering why there were so many fools loose in the world. But in spite of the delay he arrived at the depot at a quarter to six, and as he got out of the dilapidated Ford car and splashed his way to the river bank, he had forgotten the woes of life, and was concerned with getting to windward of the job ahead. rain confined all view to a limit of a few hundred yards. In the foreground there was water, broken here and there with toddy palms set at drunken angles; in the water were many logs, half submerged or floating; in the background there was more water, flowing water, the edge of a great river in full flood, whose confines disappeared in the blur of heavy rain, a torrent that carried forest wreckage seaward at the rate of six or seven knots. The light was already very strong, and the water glare troublesome to European eyes; but the rain induced a level tonelessness of colouring, and the air was heavy and oppressive with a musty, choking smell. Fowler found Cruikshank standing on a log near the edge of the current, sheltering his pipe and a note-book under an umbrella, superintending the making of a raft. The two men nodded to each other as Fowler splashed waist deep through the water and climbed on to the log; then in silence they watched a native raftsman entangling himself in a coil of rope. The rough track by which he had come ended in a small native village of six or eight huts-huts of an immemorially primitive design, built mainly of bamboo, raised on posts well off the ground, squalid and filthy and stinking, but for the most part newly roofed with dhani thatch against the rains. As the car stopped, the huts vomited forth pot-bellied children, and and withered dames paused in the serious business of chewing betel-nut and gossiping to observe the diversion with expressionless faces. The rain beat steadily on Fowler as he got out of the car, so that his shirt and shorts clung, saturated, to his body before he had moved a yard. He waited, however, for Maung Maung, the Burman who looked after the hard-worked vehicle, "Aren't they priceless?" to take a cheap cotton um- Cruikshank observed. "They'll brella from the back of the juggle with cane, but give them car, open it, and hand it to manilla or hemp and they'll him. It was very hot, and in strangle themselves within any case it was wholly absurd thirty seconds." He paused, to think of keeping dry; but stared across the rushing, flothe wanted to smoke, and in sam-strewed torrent, and added, order to do that an umbrella "There wasn't any need for was a necessity. you to come down this morning. Beyond the tiny village the But I suppose you felt like it." "Yes," Fowler answered, and changed the conversation. "Where's the launch? It was ordered for five. Of course, the damned thing would be late." "I've sent for it," Cruikshank explained. "But the tide turns in another halfhour. If it doesn't arrive we must get this lot off without it, and trust to luck." "Certainly," Fowler agreed. "There is thirty-five miles of mixed trouble between here and the ship. We mustn't think too much of risks. I know that the whole thing is an infernally silly muck-up on the part of those blighters in London, but we've got to ship something like a cargo somehow." "We have," Cruikshank grinned, for any reference to the folly of the London management invariably cheered him. "I was thinking of that last night when a mosquito got through my curtains and kept me awake. I don't think we shall do much, but we'll have a slap at it. I've got to tally up. Coming?" So the two men set about their job. A raft of fifty odd logs, solid and lengthy segments of the trunks of mighty trees, was being finished. Bundles of bamboos had been lashed to non-floating timber, cross-pieces had been bound and secured, until the whole had been fashioned into a roughly oblong raft. On this floating mass a head raftsman and four assistants, their lungis girt tightly about their loins, their naked bodies and small limbs gleaming with water, hopped and shouted and performed extravagant antics with rope. The head raftsman, an ancient person with a huge top-knot of coiled grey hair and a skin tattooed like Jacob's coat, excelled his underlings in noise and activity. Chattering without cease, except when he was compelled to pause in order to spit out a red stream of betel juice, he skipped from log to log, retying after a fashion of his own the fastenings which his assistants had already secured, upsetting coils of rope, entangling himself, apparently serenely and gloriously happy. Cruikshank ignored him, and, with the assistance of his native clerk, occupied himself with taking the numbers of the logs, balancing himself with his umbrella as he stepped from one slippery surface to another. Fowler followed the ancient, making certain that he did not do irreparable damage. 'Papa," said Fowler, pointing to the aged person as Cruikshank finished his tallying, "seems full of quiet fun. It's a good thing he knows more about navigating a raft than he does about making one. I think I'll push off back to the office, and see about things. What about getting this lot under way ?' "Right," Cruikshank allowed. "We can't wait any longer for the launch." And he sang out to the old Burman to get the rudder shipped and the sweeps lashed knew from much experience. in position, and generally to stop playing about and to get going. But Papa was in a happy mood. He seemed strangely and wonderfully divorced from the delays of the East. Asked for immediate action, he gave it. He jibbered impossible commands at his assistants; whipped his dah from the lungi about his loins; and, letting out a pleasant bird-like call of high spirits, cut the mooring rope. The solid mass of timber shot out into the current like a thing alive and eager, and, being wholly uncontrolled, began circling slowly towards mid-stream as the torrent bore it quickly seaward. Fowler and Cruikshank, watching the shore slide away from them, cursed the ways of natives; then, since there was nothing else to do, they sat on a coil of rope and smoked, waiting until chance should let them get on with their jobs again. "There is one thing," said Fowler as he hit at a snake that had appeared from the river, we are giving away weight to anything we meet." 66 "If," Cruikshank agreed, "Papa doesn't manage to get steerage on this bundle of sticks, we shall go through the craft at Sin Byu like squashing flies. We ought to be popular. I'll bet the old fool has forgotten his anchor." The river in full flood was something not to be played with; that both white men A largish raft completely out of control is an unsuitable craft for persons of nervous disposition. Yet Fowler and Cruikshank sat and smoked, discussing ways and means of getting through the work ahead of them, only occasionally reminding the ancient head raftsman with carefully chosen abuse that the penalties for piling up the raft would be considerable. The principle of one captain only, they realised, held good, and Papa was the captain. So they left it to him; and after many circles in mid-stream, after scaring such sampans and dug-outs as were on the flood into fleeing for their lives, after missing being stranded on two sandy spits where the broad river bent, the old Burman managed to rig some sort of rudder, and to get a moderate control of his unwieldy craft. His vocal efforts, which had far exceeded his physical exertions, had, however, left him unexhausted. Squatting on his haunches beside the improvised tiller, he continued to chatter and shout at his assistants, who entered into the game of back chat with the nicest zeal. But the ancient creature found time, in between sentences, to prepare with all proper care another chew of betel-nut, and to place upon his saturated head an enormous straw hata hat suggestive of a solid cart-wheel with a conical hub. So, adequately clothed and sufficiently nourished, he manœuvred his raft round a wide shared. curve, and, with vociferous Brent, the office manager, content, watched it sweep down Without taking the devastatingly on the river craft slightest notice of the horde, anchored off Sin Byu. But as he went into his room and sat the annihilation of light craft down at his table, calling for appeared inevitable and immi- the head clerk. When the nent, the launch, which should fellow, a Burman crossed with have been at the depot at Chink, appeared, Fowler spoke The-Taung at five o'clock, ap- to him slowly and clearly, so peared out of the mist of rain. that as many as possible of the It seemed to have been waiting squatting herd should hear what somewhere, prudently, upon he said. First, he ordered the events. Papa, therefore, was clerk to send a runner up to able to turn his oratory from his bungalow for his boy and his assistants to the serang of a change of clothes; and he the launch; and, so far as the waited until the clerk had two white men could judge, the handed on that order before debate reached an exalted stan- he proceeded to give others. dard of insult. When the man returned, he spoke more clearly and slowly than before. He pointed out that simply because Mr Brent was away from the office and down at the ship, it was a flagrant scandal that a head clerk should so far forget his own dignity and the prestige of his white masters as to allow the office to be invaded by persons not ordered to come into it. He directed-but before his direction was decently begun there was much scuffling of bare feet, which he ignored Off Syn Byu, Fowler and Cruikshank got hold of a sampan and went ashore in it, and watched the raft and its escorting launch disappear in the rain down river, and hoped that they would make the ship without mishap. Beyond being somewhat cramped from sitting for an hour or more on a coil of rope, they had suffered very little discomfort from Papa's sudden bout of energy, for they would have been wet in any case; but the old creature's hurry in cutting the mooring rope had delayed them in their work, and they were aware as they hurried back to their jobs that delay was a thing which they could not afford. As Fowler drove into the compound at his office, he found the place crowded with squatting natives, who covered the verandah, peopled the clerk's office, and even in vaded the room which he and that the mob should immediately be removed out of sight and sound of his room. Later, he stated, when he had changed his clothes and transacted far more important business, he might be disposed to hear what the proper representatives of the rabble wished to say to him. Beyond the scuffling of the feet of the more timid of the invaders there was silence while should be done, as the phrase goes, decently and in order. But as he changed his clothes in Brent's bedroom, he did find himself wondering what would happen when both white men and natives acknowledged that this sort of foolery was no longer required. the head clerk expressed pro- for it was essential that things found apology, and explained that the unseemly invasion was due to the gross incompetence of his juniors who had permitted this scandalous happening while he was immersed in the important duties of his office. The apology was extremely verbose; but Fowler listened to it gravely, and then waved his hand. Thereupon the head clerk strode on to the verandah, and, gesticulating freely, insulted the mob with skill. The squatting figures listened to him, grinning; then, having been suitably and properly welcomed, retired round a corner of the building to await the next phase of the ritual. Fowler went upstairs to the quarters which Brent occupied above the office, and there awaited the arrival of his dry clothes. He was fully aware that, if he was to have any chance of shipping anything like a full cargo without incurring impossible liabilities for demurrage, the mob downstairs was vitally necessary to him. He also knew that they recognised that fact just as much as he did. Further, he recognised that the mob below shared other common knowledge with him-knowledge that delay was fatal to success, that there was extreme need of hurry. Yet he made no attempt to rush to the interminable arguments that awaited him with raftsmen, owners of lighters, and gentlemen anxious to supply him with bamboos for floating; Then he went down to his office again, and faced the bargain-hunters. He made it a rule that when he was interviewing one deputation, the others should be out of earshot; but he knew that to expect a head raftsman or the captain of a lighter to conduct business expeditiously without the support, interference, and frank criticism of his crew was impossible. So he worked on the lines sanctioned by tradition, and drove the best bargains that he could. At eleven-thirty he had concluded arrangements with a sufficient number of the readiest liars in the world. He had promises for the punctual delivery at the ship of considerably more timber than she was due to load. So he went to breakfast in his own bungalow, wondering whether supervision and continuous driving would result in the stowing of even a half cargo. His efforts of the day before in piloting the ship to her anchorage had left his energy low. During his solitary meal he thought about the way in which the Company was treating him, and he found himself foolishly longing for an independent income, which |